Review of 2009 Smart Grid News

Smart Grid is a topic captured my attention late last year and I have been (loosely) following the topic ever since. A Google Insights graph shows that I am right in line with everyone else and that 2009 was a big year for smart grid. In April 2009 I started collecting a few links on smart grid and this past summer I had every intention on posting a few links out to the things I had been reading. Well, the year just got away from me and later in the year I decided to do this 2009 roundup of news, sites and various links of interest. I know there is much more than what I have listed here, but these are my bookmarks.

Security in the smart grid is of particular interest to me. I've been in IT long enough, and have read Christopher Hoff's blog long enough now that I know security aspects of this technology can NOT be underestimated. Earlier this month President Obama appointed a new Cybersecurity Coordinator, Howard Schmidt. Let's just say I bet/hope security aspects of smart grid technologies are on his short list. Below is my list of smart grid websites about companies, products, projects and government related information. After that I'll list my news bookmark collection as 2009 progressed.

Smart Grid Companies / web sites / projects / government

• NIST Smart Grid Interoperability Standards Project
  
• U.S. Dept. of Energy Office of Electricity delivery and energy reliability
  
• NationalGrid
  
• HowStuffWorks: How the smart grid will work
• GridWise Alliance
  
• Zigbee alliance: an association of companies working together to enable reliable, cost-effective, low-power, wirelessly networked, monitoring and control products based on an open global standard.
• EnerNOC: technology-enabled energy management solutions to help meet the needs of utility/grid operators.
  
• GridNet: Software intelligence to manage the smart grid
  
• ICE Energy: provider of distributed energy storage and smart grid solutions for optimizing energy system efficiency
• GE Ecomagination
  
• Cisco Smart Grid solutions
  
• Cisco EnergyWise
  
• IBM Smart Grid
  
• UtiliQ ranking of U.S. electrical utilities Analysis from IDC Energy Insights and Intelligent-Utility magazine
  
• SmartGrid stocks
  
• Smart Grid News
  
• SmartGrid - TMCNet portal
  

2009 time line of events and news about smart grids.
Interest in the topic peaked in April when the U.S. power grid being hacked was a big story, and then again in October when President Obama announced $3.4 billion in funds to enable the "largest single energy grid investment in U.S. history." I have a few news stories about the current power grid, but (to me) they are related to the smart grid.

• January 26: earth2tech FAQ: Smart Grid
  
• April 8 Cnet : Report: Spies hacked into US electricity grid
  
• April 9: U.S. Power Grid Hacked, Everyone Panic - Bruce Shneier
  
• April 9: Video - U.S. Power Grid Hacked
  
• April 9: CNN - Hacked power grid video on YouTube
  
• April 9: eWeek - Electric Power grid hack lights up cyber-security infrastructure experts
  
• April 16: White House: Vice President Biden Outlines Funding for Smart Grid Initiatives
• June 11: Government Computer News: DOE, NIST aim to secure smart grid
  
• July 12 Hacking Power : Feds Promise Smart Grid Security
  
• July 23: Science News: Electric grid still very vulnerable to electromagnetic weaponry
  
• July 28: IO Active - IOActive's Mike Davis to unveil smart grid research at Black Hat USA
  
• August 28: Cnet - Bill would give president emergency control of Internet
• September: InTech - Security, wireless standards on smart grid roadmap
  
• September 4: Defense contractors pursue the smart grid
  
• September 11: How to short-circuit the US power grid
  
• September 11: earth2tech - Utility interest in WiMAX for smart grid growing
  
• September 14: Computerworld - City 2.0: IT will make cities more engaging and energy-efficient
  
• September 16: ZDnet : IBM opens up systems framework for energy companies
  
• September 21-24 GridWeek
  
• September 24: Scientific American - How will the smart grid work?
  
• October 5: Business Week: The coming energy revolution
  
• October 21: Smart grid leads German revolution
  
• October 26: White House - President Obama explains the smart grid and economic recovery
  
• October 27: President Obama announces $3.4 Billion Investment to Spur Transition to Smart Energy Grid
• October 28: Here's where that smart grid money is going
• October 29: Network World : Q&A: Why IP is the right choice for Smart Grid
• October 29: Network World: Will smart grid power IPv6?
  
• November 7: Earth Times: Smart grid projects in 90 percent of U.S. states
  
• November 9: Data Center Knowledge: power grid hacking back in the news
  
• November 18-19 Green Beat 2009 conference on the smart grid
  
• November 20: Mother Nature Network: Smart technology may increase grid's vulnerability
  
• December 9: Renewable Energy Focus - GridWise alliance releases two smart grid reports.
  
• December 17: Smart Grid News: Report: Smart grid market could double in four years.
  
• December 18: U.S. Dept. of Energy - Secretary Chu announces efforts to strengthen US. electric transmission networks
  
• December 22: earth2tech: Top 10 trends for the smart grid in 2010, courtesy of Ray Bell.
  
• December 22: EE Times - Universities gear up for smart grid training
  
• December 25: The Hot Aisle - Want to understand the smart grid?
  

and in 2010....

• May 18,19, 2010: The Networked Grid
• 
  

Finally - my twitter list for SmartGrid

Green Storage, Smart Grids, and Wireless Spectrum for Utility Providers

Earth2tech has an excellent article on smarter storage -- how data storage can account for up to 40 percent of the energy consumed by a data center. GigaOm's Tom Trainer offered data de-duplication and thin provisioning as technologies that were helping the greening efforts. 3Par is a leader in thin provisioning, which is a "mechanism that applies to large-scale centralized computer disk storage systems, SAN's and storage virtualization systems". 3Par recently helped Mary Kay save 50% in storage capacity and 60% administration time with 3PAR Utility Storage and six InServ storage servers.

Last week Vint Cerf had a Google Public Policy blog post titled Where the smart grid meets the Internet. Vint has some awesome insight (as always) into building the smart grid and how it is essentially a nascent energy Internet. He stresses open protocols, open standards and free access to all of the energy information generated.

Finally -- Earth2tech also has an article today about American Electric Power (AEP) telling the FCC that a dedicated licensed spectrum is sorely needed by utilities. AEP is saying that as more smart grid services are rolled out, more and more network bandwidth is needed.

Smart Grids, City 2.0 and Project Netal

Ok, so those 3 things aren't related -- I just had a couple of things I ran across tonight that I found interesting....

1. Cisco looks to ride smart-grid data deluge. This one is pretty apparent if you follow the Cisco news and EnergyWise software announcements. I keep waiting for a Cisco acquisition -- particularly in this space.

2. HP's vision of building City 2.0. HP Labs sustainability visionary Chandrakant Patel describes his vision of building City 2.0, enabled by a sustainable IT Ecosystem. Pretty interesting interview/article.

3. Ok -- so this one is not data center related, but is just frigg'n cool. :) Cnet has an exclusive on Microsoft's project Natal. Netal is a next generation gaming platform (REALLY next generation) with no controller required.

one last one, as long as we're talking about the big companies in IT : BusinessWeek posted an interview with Eric Schmidt last week and asks several questions about where Google is headed next.

DOE Smart Grid Report and $57 Million Funding

Renewable Energy World reports on the DOE $57 million to fund smart grid development yesterday. The original announcement was back on July 20th and included more than $47 million in funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and $10.5 million to increase the nation's energy security. Wednesday Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced the delivery of more than $47 million in funding. The DOE also released a Smart Grid Report. Other items of interest on their web site include:

• The Smart Grid: An Introduction
• Smart Grid E-Forums
• Federal Smart Grid Task Force
• Grid 2030 Vision
• Modern Grid Strategy - a project of the National Energy Technology Laboratory

Science News also had an interesting article recently about Electromagnetic weaponry being used on the electric grid.

Renewable Energy Roundup

I've run across several items recently of interest in terms of smartgrids, new energy sources and reports on renewable energy.

Blue is the new Green

THE man, Mr. Bob Metcalfe (small invention known as Ethernet) -- is a partner in Polaris Venture Partners, a group of "experienced venture capital investors and technology executives." Polaris backs many IT and life science businesses and has an Enertech portfolio that is pretty impressive. Bob Metcalfe has a very interesting SlideShare presentation titled Internet History Applied to Solving Energy. This was from the March presentation at GigaOm's Green:Net -- I must have missed that, but this presentation is pretty cool.

Frost & Sollivan also have a nice SlideShare presentation on Utility-Scale (Grid) Energy Storage Development. Bulk Energy Storage + Power Generation = Grid Modernization

The DOE announced today up to $52.5 Million for concentrating solar power research and development.

The 20% Wind report card was released last week -- B overall, Transmission lags at C-. "National Policy Commitment Urgently Needed to Ensure Greater Use of Clean, Abundant Energy Source". Check out the report here.

Technology Review had an article yesterday about upgrading the electrical grid in the U.S. if it is to increase the use of renewable energy resources. "But plans to string new high-voltage lines to bring wind power from the midsection of the country to the coasts, where most of the demand is, could be expensive and unnecessary, and a distraction from more urgent needs, some experts say."

Also reported yesterday -- treehugger.com has an article on Baltimore's massive smart grid program where 2 million meters are being installed. Earth2tech also has an article on this.

Treehugger.com also reports that a new U.S. renewable energy record was set: 13% of total electric generation in April 2009.

I've seen a number of things online now about energy transmission problems and to lend to that, last week T. Boone Pickens announced that his plans to build the $10 Billion, 4,000 megawatt, Pampa Wind project are on hold. Energyworld.com article with the rest of the details here.

Cisco and Duke Energy Partner for Smart Grid Development

Cisco and Duke Energy announced a partnership today to fast-track the development of Duke Energy's smart grid. Duke serves 11 million people over 5 states and later this year will launch a five year mass deployment of smart grid technology.

"Cisco, working closely with Duke Energy, will develop a highly refined, end-to-end, smart grid communications architecture – one that both companies believe will be among the most comprehensive and interoperable in the electric utility industry."

Check out the press release here.